Through The Heart
by Lancinate
Summary: It's been a long time since Phil has gotten to hold Loki close. They celebrate by having sex and feelings.


He doesn't have to look up to know who it is. "Through the heart? Really?"

Loki just drops onto the stool next to him, one hand finding Phil's, fingers slipping deftly between his, rubbing his thumb gently along the underside of Phil's wrist.

"I mean, don't you think that's a little..."

"Symbolic?"

"I was going to say melodramatic."

Loki smiles. "Are you trying to tell me that it hurt?"

"Like a motherfucker."

Loki looks at him, his face inscrutable. One hand travels slowly up Phil's torso, coming to rest just over his heart. He wants to say it's the same exact place that Loki stabbed him, but he's never been sure. "Does it still hurt?"

Phil's not about to answer that.

"How long has it been?" Loki asks. "For you?"

"Since I first saw you? Or since I last saw you?"

Loki considers. "Both."

"One year, eight months and 3 days to the first, six months and 24 days to the second." He pauses, plays with Loki's fingers. "And for you?"

Loki moves his hand from Phil's heart to his face. "Too long."

He has to keep telling Loki to slow down, has to insist that they do it on the bed, with the lights on, because he hasn't waited six months, 24 days, three hours, 36 minutes and 23, no, 26 seconds for something he could have accomplished in one night with anybody.

Loki gives in the way Phil knows he will, pretending like this isn't what he wanted all along, a slow, intimate, almost romantic union. He's adamant about the lights, but Phil's persuasive.

He knows to expect it even before Loki argues. He's spent enough time in a high risk career. He's seen the way it can affect people. He knows the signs. He just never expected to see them in Loki.

So, there are scars on his body now. And Phil never realized that Loki put any stock into being pretty, but then, he figures, they're not the casual scars of battle or the nostalgic scars of childhood. They're something more. Something he knows not to ask about.

Phil doesn't say anything about them, but he runs his hands lovingly over each and every one, fingers sliding over the uneven puckering of skin. Loki doesn't get to make a huge, noble sacrifice and then be embarrassed by it. That's not how it works.

Besides, Phil's got a few scars of his own.

Just not the one you'd expect. Nothing to commemorate the moment when Loki sliced him through the heart. They don't do sentimental.

He draws things out, kissing what feels like every inch of Loki's lean pale stomach, doing his best to brush gently along the tender spots on his sides, because he loves the way that Loki squirms underneath him, how he seems soft and vulnerable in those moments.

There's this unspoken thing between them, where Phil doesn't even get close to Loki's cock and Loki doesn't complain, he just teases Phil the same way, focusing on his body and his lips and his nipples, nipping at Phil's neck and thighs, like if they taste each other enough it'll make up for what they've lost.

He slips his tongue inside, feels Loki relax his muscles to give him entrance but he's still so tight, and Phil fucks him with his tongue until he's loose enough for Phil to slide in and out without too much trouble, until Loki's pretending to try not to beg. He still has to open him up with his fingers, slowly. He doesn't want it to hurt. He wants it to be perfect.

When Loki impales himself on Phil, it's worth all of the careful denial they've been practicing, for his cock's first significant contact with Loki to be on the inside, to feel his muscles clench and unclench along the length of him and to have to employ all of his training not to cry out at the sensation, because he's still got some self respect.

It started off as a partnership. It was never meant to be a partnership. It's not even that, officially. But it's been almost seven months apart and Phil's barely even looked at another man. And by appearances, at least, he's the less interested party.

Mostly, he kept going by thinking about their future. By thinking about that light at the end of the long, treacherous tunnel that they'd entered down.

When he thought about the past, it was always the same conversation.

"They need a reason to really hate me," Loki'd said, meeting Phil's eyes with a deep sort of sadness. "And you need an escape."

It wasn't strictly true. He didn't need an escape. But working with all of them, pretending to support them when instead he was undermining their very purpose, it was better to get out.

His knowledge is important to the plan, but his presence isn't. Loki can go wherever he wants. And if Phil Coulson is dead, well, no one's going to worry about the things that he knows.

So he's spent more than half of a year making a new life, in a new town, as a new person. Loki's made changes to his face, subtle ones, mostly changes to his profile. That way, when he looks straight in the mirror, he still sees himself. And if anyone else happens to see that self too, well, a closer look should have them convinced that they're mistaken.

It took him a while to notice them all. He's sure he still hasn't noticed them all. When he first woke up, lying in the bed, roses and chocolates and a long note sitting on the kitchen counter – even though they don't do romantic – he'd felt mostly normal. Sure, his last memory had been one of immense pain and of shooting Loki through a wall, and then suddenly he was starting over in a strange town, but that he'd been mostly prepared for. It hadn't shaken him.

The first time he caught his profile in a mirror, that had.

Sometimes when he was missing Loki he'd hunt for changes he hadn't noticed, wonder if they were all things that Loki hadn't liked about him, or if it was just out of necessity. Probably both.

He still has no idea how Loki did it. Not the changes – well, the changes also, but mostly how he got Phil from the helicarrier to this apartment, and how he'd reversed his death along the way. He's never going to ask.

He could have asked before, of course. Could have demanded some sort of proof that this was all going to work before he let Loki kill him. Instead, he'd just trusted him. Trusted that he didn't want to know, and that if Loki was lying to him about everything, well, at least if he were dead he wouldn't have to find out.

The second time is a half hour after the first and technically might count as twice but there's no break, there's absolutely no hesitation between the moment he finishes inside of Loki and the moment Loki has him on his back, already sliding a slim finger into him.

He's not expecting it, exactly. He's expecting that to happen later, absolutely, completely, but in the moment it catches him off guard, it makes him whimper in the most positive way that he's ever heard anyone whimper, and Loki's face curls into this unfairly infectious smile.

Loki's already hard again, and Phil runs his fingers gently along the length as Loki's fingers scissor inside of him. He's breathing heavily and he's not even sure if it's because he's still recovering from his first orgasm or because he's preparing for his second.

All he knows is that Loki's fingers aren't enough, that he has to feel Loki's cock deep inside of him, that it's the closest he ever gets to feeling like they fit together perfectly.

And Loki presses in slowly, so gently, like it's Phil's first time, and Phil knows it's a ploy to make him squirm, or beg, or moan, but he doesn't do any of those things, he just closes his eyes and smiles.

It makes him feel shaky and vulnerable, getting fucked. It's usually not something he likes feeling, because in his line of work – or, what used to be his line of work – usually that means he's in trouble. But when he's getting fucked it's different. It's okay, if he's getting fucked by the right person, if that person stays around to hold him close and make him feel safe and comfortable.  
And Loki doesn't know that, exactly, Phil's never told him how he feels – about anything, really – but he knows that he's allowed to curl up around him now and he does.

"I love you," Loki says and Phil closes his eyes and squeezes his hand and pretends that didn't just happen.

Those months alone, there was always something. Some nagging need at the back of his mind. He doesn't want to say doubt. He doesn't want to admit that he ever doubted.

But, he needed something. He needed to not be alone, in that basic way everyone needs not to be alone. So he'd access the SHIELD databases, remotely, under another name. He was always very careful.

And he'd sit there, in his ratty old pajamas, sipping tea and reading Loki's file. Reading all of the terrible things that had ever been said about him. Reading all of the terrible things that he'd done. And after three weeks of that, after he'd decided maybe it wasn't the most healthy use of his time, he still didn't believe a word of it.

He'd just sit there, thinking about the day when they could finally set the record straight. He'd look at the file and watch the statements, by Barton, by Fury, and most painfully, by Rogers, and he'd imagine the day when Loki could finally get the recognition that he deserved.

When he could finally have everything.

The third time he's on his back on the table. They're working, there are all of these neatly ordered files and then Loki looks at him, and there's this look in his eyes, this fierce sort of need and Phil gives in completely as Loki lifts him and slides him onto the table, papers going everywhere.

"We should – we should clean up first," Phil says, panting as Loki tears off his pants, gasping as Loki slides into him. He's still open from the last time, but just barely, so he feels the stretch.

And Loki fucks into him relentlessly, drives into him so that he has to grab hold of the edge of the table and then he stops, cocks his head and says, "you were saying?"

Phil can only close his eyes and moan, because his cock is aching and so is his ass and so, strangely, is the place where Loki stabbed him, and he doesn't know what to do about it but it's sure as hell not to lie there talking about the housekeeping.

Loki smirks, and then he brings Phil's face to his, brings his whole body up so that Loki's supporting him with his arms and his cock, holding him over the table and he fucks him like that, for a bit, but it's just a segue, just an excuse to hold him close and then Loki carries him into the bedroom and drops him on the bed.

Phil instinctively bends his knees to his chest, looks up at Loki and wants him, so badly.

"On your stomach," Loki says, and Phil complies, rolling over languidly. He's not usually the type to turn his back to people, but this is different.

And he gasps as Loki enters him but that's not what he's focused on anymore, not when Loki's laying on top of him, chest flush against Phil's back, breathing heavily into his ear, whispering into his ear and he's not too heavy but he is very strong so Phil knows he's completely at Loki's mercy and it's perfect.

That ache in his chest, it's getting stronger but it's good too, it's this unbearable need and he knows he'll never fill it, but just the fact that he's feeling it is good.

"I love you," he whispers, like he's telling the pillows, and he can feel Loki's breath catch in his throat and then he can feel Loki's cock pulsating deep inside of him, and then Phil's coming too, for the fourth time in too few hours and it hurts, but because of where he is, because he can feel Loki against every inch of him, it's worth it.

Loki doesn't let him up until the last tremor of need is gone and still he rolls over onto his back and can't seem to catch his breath.

He wakes up the next morning with Loki's limbs entangled in his, and he's not sure how he slept for fourteen hours, but he supposes it's the first time he's really felt comfortable in a very long time.

And Loki smiles at him, this sleepy little smile and he runs his hand along Phil's chest, slides it down across his stomach and between his thighs, pressing his lips against Phil's neck.

"We should – we have things to do," Phil says, closing his eyes, letting his chest swell with want. "You said it was the most important thing."

"Oh, but I lack conviction," Loki says, smirking, kissing him on the corner of his jaw, hand running along Phil's chest. "It's in my nature."

And Phil grins. "I should have known you would use that against me."


End file.
